誰才是真正的“野蠻人”？

When the welfare officers came to take three-year-old Archie Roach from his tin-lined house in 1)Framlingham in southeastern Australia， they told his mother they were 2)escorting him to a picnic. His aunt tried to3)scare them off with a gun， but it wasn’t 4)loaded. Institutionalized in a Melbourne orphanage， young Archie was told his family had died in a fire. His 5)minders tried to force his hair straight， breaking comb teeth in his 6)frizzy curls. It was a vain attempt by whites to make an 7)Aboriginal child more like them. It didn’t work， and the combs weren’t the only 8)casualties.

Roach， now 54， is one of an estimated 100，000 Aborigines， living and dead， who make up Australia’s so-called Stolen Generation. At that time 9)Indigenous people were seen as an inferior race and those considered “not of 10)full blood” were encouraged to become 11)assimilated into the broader society so that eventually there would be no more Indigenous people left. Under a government policy that ran from 1910 to， unbelievably， 1971， as many as 1 in 10 of all Aboriginal children were removed from their families in an effort to “civilize” them by assimilation into white society.

The policy of “stealing” Aboriginal children， mostly those with some white blood， was devised in the early 1900s when 12)eugenic theories were widely 13)touted. In Australia， government administrators thought that by bringing mixed-blood Aborigines into the white world， the color could be “14)bred out of them” over a few generations. Meanwhile the fully black population， regarded as 15)irredeemably primitive， was expected to simply die out. The practice was not widely discussed until 1997， when an official inquiry found consistent patterns of physical and sexual abuse of the “stolen” children， of exploitation in the labor market and of social 16)dislocation that led many into 17)alcoholism， violence and early death.

Roach， who was taken from his family because he had a white grandfather， knows what they went through. His third set of 18)foster parents treated him well， as an equal to their own three children. But his life was shattered when Roach， 14， received a letter from his sister Myrtle， who had tracked him down through welfare agencies. Their mother， supposedly dead， had passed away the previous week. Furious that he’d been lied to his whole life， Roach ran away from home and spent the next 14 years drinking， sleeping in parks， playing the guitar to earn enough for the next bottle. Finally， he 19)dried out and began writing and singing songs， including his 1987 hit， Took the Children Away， which launched him on an upward musical career. But， he says， “I still feel the pain， every day. Sometimes it threatens to 20)engulf me.”

Dr Jane McKendrick， a 21)psychiatrist at Melbourne University who has worked with Aboriginal communities for 17 years， says a ‘high proportion’ of people from the Stolen Generations were either psychologically， physically or sexually abused while in care. Feelings of depression， anxiety， 22)posttraumatic stress and suicide are commonplace among victims. She notes that 50% of deaths investigated by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in 23)Custody were of people who have been removed from their families as children.

Many Aboriginal and 24)Torres Strait Islander people who were placed with white families did not find out about their background until late in life. Finding their 25)estranged families and returning to their birthplace can be the start of a painful process 26)marred by feelings of cultural alienation. One of the people interviewed for the Bringing Them Home Report said: “A lot of people say that they don’t know what exactly they are， whether they’re white or they’re black. Where exactly they belong.”

The impact of the Stolen Generations has also passed on to the next generation. Dr McKendrick reported that “when (Aboriginal people who were removed) come to have their own children they’ve really got no idea how to parent in either the conventional Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal way…so their children are very often removed from them (by welfare agencies) which sets up this terrible cycle which goes on for generations.”

While many Aboriginal groups feel they can never be adequately compensated for the loss of their families， since the Bringing Them Home Report was released there has been a strong campaign for an official apology by the Australian Government. One of the key recommendations of the Bringing Them Home Report was an official apology from the government， as well as financial compensation for the suffering caused by the government. The project aimed to “civilize” Aboriginal children. However， the pain brought by the so called “civilization plan” would last forever.

在澳大利亞東南部的弗莫林漢，福利院的官員從那鐵皮屋里帶走了當(dāng)時只有三歲的阿奇·羅奇。他們對阿奇的母親說是要護(hù)送他到一個野餐會去。阿奇的阿姨試圖用槍嚇走那些人，可是那桿槍是沒上子彈的。小阿奇就這樣被收容在墨爾本的一家孤兒院里，別人告訴他說他的家人已在一場火災(zāi)中喪生。他的看護(hù)人極力要把他的卷發(fā)梳成直發(fā)，結(jié)果弄到梳齒斷裂。白種人以為如此一來就可以把土著居民的孩子變得和他們大致一樣，卻不過是白費(fèi)心機(jī)。這樣并不奏效，而遭罪的當(dāng)然不僅僅是這些梳子。

如今羅奇已經(jīng)54歲了，是約10萬名這類土著居民(這其中包含已故的和在世的)當(dāng)中的一員，他們是澳大利亞所謂的“被偷走的一代”。在當(dāng)時，土著居民被視為低等種族，白種人支持把那些“非純種血統(tǒng)”的土著居民同化進(jìn)主流社會中，這樣一來，總有一天，土著居民將不復(fù)存在。始于1910年的政策，每十個土著居民兒童中就有一個被強(qiáng)行從他們的家人身邊帶離，其目的是為了“教化”他們，使他們?nèi)谌氚兹巳后w。令人難以置信的是，這項政策竟一直延續(xù)到1971年。

“偷走”土著兒童(主要是那些帶有白人血統(tǒng)的)的政策是在20世紀(jì)之初、優(yōu)生學(xué)理論廣受吹捧時制定推行的。澳大利亞政府相信把這些混血的土著居民帶進(jìn)白人世界，經(jīng)過幾代的“混血”，他們原本的膚色就會褪去。而膚色為全黑的種族則被認(rèn)為是無可救藥地原始低下，就只能等著漸漸消亡。……